


Ready, Aim, Fire

by brilliantbanshee



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BAMF Pidge | Katie Holt, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Hurt Hunk (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt is So Done, Protective Hunk (Voltron), Protective Pidge | Katie Holt, pidge swears a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 12:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilliantbanshee/pseuds/brilliantbanshee
Summary: One of the things Pidge loved the most about being in space was the tech. In the past year she had seen, destroyed, and built more things than she could ever have imagined in her wildest dreams on earth.Which is why this planet just pissed her off. It was bad enough that they were under attack, but could it at least be some sort of cool new tech? No, they were using fucking arrows. She was taking this personally.Or,The paladins are engaged in battle with an anti-technology race. Pidge is unpleased, but Hunk always has her back – and her front. Bad things happen.





	Ready, Aim, Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fallen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallen/gifts).



> This prompt was requested by Fallen like, two months ago. 
> 
> But it's finished! She asked for human shield with Hunk protecting Pidge because he's so much bigger (or something like that, I don't remember exactly berate me later but I wasn't about to go through all our texts to find it again. Pretty sure I got it covered anyways). 
> 
> So, here it is.

**Prompt:** Human Shield with Hunk and Pidge (requested by Fallen)

**Title:** Ready, Aim, Fire

**Summary:** One of the things Pidge loved the most about being in space was the tech. In the past year she had seen, destroyed, and built more things than she could ever have imagined in her wildest dreams on earth.

Which is why this planet just pissed her off. It was bad enough that they were under attack, but could it at least be some sort of cool new tech? No, they were using fucking _arrows_. She was taking this personally.

Or,

The paladins are engaged in battle with an anti-technology race. Pidge is unpleased, but Hunk always has her back – and her front. Bad things happen.

 

* * *

 

The squeal of flying arrows was punctuated by a cry of pain coming across the comms.

Keith’s voice, much higher than usual in panic, follows quickly, “Lance! Fuck, Lance!”

Keith’s voice sounds frantic and the unfamiliar panic (and vulgarity) from the usually stoic boy makes Pidge’s blood run cold. Before she can pull her thoughts together to form words Shiro’s voice comes over the comms, “Keith, what happened?”

Keith’s voice is still shaky as he responds, “Lance is hit. It’s…bad.”

“How bad?” this voice is pitched higher in worry and much clearer as the anxious yellow paladin in question is standing next to Pidge.

 There was a heavy pause before Keith clarified for those not present, voice still tense; “there’s an arrow, in his neck.”

Various cries of alarm and dismay echoed across the comms, but died down as Keith started speaking again, “he got hit right in the space between his armor and his helmet, but it doesn’t look like it hit anything but muscle – somehow – so he should be fine, probably. I’m still going to need to bandage it the best I can and keep him still until we can get back to the castle though so it doesn’t slip and cause more damage. Which means we’re out of commission guys, sorry.”

Pidge cursed under her breath. Now they were two down, Lance was hurt, and they were still no closer to defeating these _heathens_. She didn’t even bother to mutter her curse this time as she was suddenly yanked to the right by Hunk, pulling her out of the path of a whizzing arrow just in time. Seriously, what was wrong with guns or cannons if they wanted to go all medieval?

There was more commotion on the comms that ended in heavy heaving breaths that could only be from Shiro. He and Allura were approaching from the north while Keith and Lance had been attempting to do the same from the west. Pidge and Hunk were on their own journey from the east. (Did alien planets even have north, west, and east? There was no magnetic field – or at least not the same one they used for direction on earth. It may be more accurate to just use left, right, and center. Pidge filed this away to study later.)

Judging by the exhausted and exasperated sounds coming in from their team leader, it did not sound like the north (center?) was fairing much better than the west (left? Whatever.)

“Shiro, is everything okay on your end?”

His reply was cut off by an exclamation that would usually have had Pidge calling him a hypocrite if this situation didn’t have her so strung out. He tried again, “No,” he said curtly, “we’re pinned down. Fine – for the time being – but pinned down. You and Hunk are going to have to a way to either blind them or distract them somehow. Until then Allura and I are not going to be too much help unless they suddenly get bored with trying to kill us.”

Judging by the whistling sounds of arrows flying above their heads, that was not likely to happen any time soon. For all of her hatred of these aliens, their arrows, and this situation Pidge had to admit that she was impressed with their ammunition stock. They had been firing non-stop for over 10 dobashes now with no sign of slowing down. 

She sighed and looked over at Hunk. He looked terrified, but when she met his eyes he gave her a shrug, indicating that he too had no idea how to solve this problem. Great.

“Hang tight Shiro,” she said wearily, “we’ll figure something out.”

He let out a breathy laugh, “I know you will. You’ve got two geniuses on your team, you’ll figure something out and we’ll all get out of here.”

Keith’s voice sounded over the comms again, still tense but less panicked than before, “Not to rush you guys, but while I have Lance bandaged and I think he’s fairly stable, I’m not sure how much longer he has. He’s still loosing a lot of blood, so the sooner the better.”

Pidge closed her eyes. Right, so; two team mates pinned down, one critically injured and another taking care of him. Fucking barbarian aliens who were using fucking arrows with no sign of anything even remotely electronic, so zero chance of hacking.

Then there’s the fact that the only two left standing were the hacker and the engineer. Fucking wonderful.

All they had to work with were their bayards and their non-impressive close combat skills. That and a lot of math and science talent, which was not terribly useful in this situation.

She frowned and opened her eyes, looking over at Hunk. He was gazing at the lines of archers with his brows furrowed in thought. “What do you think Hunk,” she asked drily, “any brilliant ideas?”

After a moment Hunk’s expression relaxed a bit and he almost smiled, “I don’t know about brilliant, but I do have an idea.”

 

* * *

 

Basically, it came down to this: Hunk had noticed that all of the clusters of archers spread throughout the field before them all seemed to taking their cues from one central location. From their various trees and platforms and foxholes they were somehow all in communication with a command station that was located just east of their location. The command center was in another one of their raised platforms, this one taller than the rest. Pidge wasn’t sure how they were all communicating with said command center (she almost hoped that they had comms or something so this place wasn’t such a dark age nightmare) but the fact remained that they were, and it made them frighteningly efficient.

Which meant that their best (and possibly only) course of action was to take it out. Cut off the head of the snake and what not. This meant stealth was their best friend, which meant that it was time for their armor to go. 

Pidge looked sadly down at her helmet as she placed it next to her in the tall grass she and Hunk had ducked into. Paladins were meant to be symbols of hope, and their armor had been designed to be noticed. They were meant to stick out in a crowd, or on a battlefield. Hence, the glaring white.

But in order for this to work, they were going to need the element of surprise. Their lives – and the lives of their team – depended on it. The hope was that if they left their armor (laid out in the proper sequence for a human body) hidden in the tall grass, it might get spotted and make them think that they were still hiding there while in reality they would be sneaking through the overgrown grass on their bellies, bodies covered in dirt, in hopes of getting to the command center unnoticed.

“Ready?” she whispered to Hunk as he placed the last piece of his armor in place. He nodded and gave her a salute. She allowed herself a small giggle, and began her trek; Hunk following close behind.

Before she had started she had risked a glance above the grass to get a heading on the command center. Theoretically all they would have to do would be to head in a straight line and they should reach their destination. With the hope that logic wouldn’t fail her now, she set off.

 

* * *

 

After only a few minutes Pidge realized that she really truly did need to spend more time on the training deck. Apparently, army crawling for any length of time required much more upper body strength than she had originally anticipated. Her shoulders screamed in pain, but she pushed on. There was nothing else to do. She could hear Hunk’s breathing get slightly faster as they went, but he seemed to be faring much better than her.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the posts of the command center came into view. She came to a halt and waited for Hunk to come to a stop next to her. She looked at him questioningly and he responded with a thumb up. All good then. She nodded to indicate the same. Then she held up three fingers. This time, Hunk was the one to nod. At his go ahead, she silently counted down. As she lowered the last finger, the broke their separate ways – sprinting the last few feet to the command center and finally getting to their feet once they were underneath.

As she pulled herself up, she glanced across the base of the structure to see Hunk doing the same. Now all that was left was to climb up to the top and take out the commander. Simple. She nodded to Hunk and they began their climb.

Her shoulders were really screaming at her now, but the climb was easy enough. She held her breath as they ascended. This was by far the riskiest part. Though they had decided to climb up on the inside of the structure, there was not much coverage from watchful eyes, and since every archer on the planet was looking over here for guidance, that risk was considerable.

They reached the top without incident and Pidge let out a small sigh of relief. They were almost there now. She tapped Hunk’s shoulder to indicate that she was about to swing herself out from the inside of the structure to the platform and he nodded. She readied herself, bayard in hand, and swung herself around the post she clung to, pausing for the briefest of moments before pulling herself up to the top. She wobbled as she cleared the platform and had to pause to catch herself. No one on the platform seemed to have noticed her presence yet and she could hear Hunk making his final ascent below her. Maybe they would actually pull this off after all.

In the next minute, several things happened all at once.

Pidge had steadied herself and was rising to her full height, pulling out her bayard as she rose.

Hunk was pulling himself onto the platform behind her.

Hunk shouted her name, voice frantic.

Pidge spun around, eyes going wide at the sight of an arrow flying directly at her.

Her body froze, all joints locked in panic.

Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice was shouting about how she was not about to be killed by a fucking arrow of all things, but the majority of her mind was filled with that all encompassing panic as she watched death approach.

If you had asked her yesterday how she thought she would die, this would have been so far from her realm of imagination it was almost hilarious. But here she was, frozen in fear in the path of a goddamn arrow.

She hoped Matt would at least find comfort in the irony of it.

Her view of the arrow that was intent of giving her the most ironic death of all time was suddenly eclipsed by the sight of a brown shoulder and an orange headband and she felt strong arms wrap around her.

Within a the space of a heartbeat, the grip of the arms slackened and time started again.

All of the information finally formed into a coherent thought and Pidge felt the cold dread of fear for the second time today as she realized why she wasn’t dead and why Hunk’s grip was slipping all in one terrible moment.

“Hunk!” she called to her friend frantically, sinking down with him. She shimmed out of his grasp and frantically reached around to his back to assess the damage. She breath caught as her roving hands met the blood soaked base of an arrow buried deep in Hunk’s shoulder. She choked back a sob. “Hunk,” she tried again, “are you…”

A weary cough answered her and she almost cried in relief. The boy groaned and blinked up at her blearily, “I’m fine,” he rasped out, “you should take care of these guys though.”

He was right – their dramatic arrival had not gone unnoticed. There were five soldiers on this platform and about 200 archers all with their eyes trained on them. Fuck.

But one of them sneered at Hunk and Pidge felt her blood boil. These stone aged dickwads were not about to mock her friend after he had just saved her life from their sorry asses. Not on her watch.

Her bayard flicked to life and she was moving before they had time to blink. She took down the one to her right immediately, sliced through the tendons of two more in one go, and gave another a nasty shock as she approached the one who seemed to be in charge.

His eyes were wide as he took in his comrades who had just been defeated by a pint-sized paladin covered in dirt in under two dobashes. When they landed on her, there was real fear in them. She grinned at him, and his eyes widened even more.

“I suggest that you tell the rest of your people to cease fire and surrender, unless you want to end up like them. Or,” here she paused, running a finger along the curve of her bayard blade, “I can see what parts of your anatomy you don’t necessarily need to survive.”

His eyes flicked back to his fallen comrades and then out the archers in the field before he sighed. Without a word he reached for a pair of flags resting on the table next to him and began to signal with them.

(Of course they used semaphore flags to communicate. Pidge hated this planet _so fucking much_.)

Once he was finished with his message and the clatter of bows and quivers being dropped echoed across the field Pidge gave him a cheery wave with her bayard and turned her attention back to more important matters at hand. Namely, her bleeding friend.

She rushed back over to Hunk’s side and dropped to her knees. There was not a lot of blood – thankfully – but the arrow was buried deep into his shoulder. There was no way she was going to risk pulling it out here, it would have to wait until they were back at the castle and the infirmary. She did need to secure it as much as possible though.

After considering the size and placement of the wound, she got back to her feet and crossed back to the commander. He flinched as she walked towards him (smart alien), but she ignored him and instead grabbed on of his flags. She used her bayard to slice the material from the staff – pointedly ignoring the looks of horror from the commander – before returning to Hunk’s side with an assortment of fabric strips. She secured the arrow in place as gently as she could, feeling a stab of guilt with each sharp intake of breath from her friend.

By the time she finished he was breathing heavily and had paled considerably, but he could look at lot worse. She studied his face intently and upon deciding that he wasn’t on deaths door, she punched his arm.

Hunk gave a squeak of indignation before looking at her with puppy dog eyes, “what was that for,” he gasped.

“That was for nearly getting yourself killed!”

“But I didn’t.”

“Hence the nearly.”

Hunk tried to forced himself into a sitting position and Pidge reached over to help him. Sure she was mad at him, but she wasn’t a monster.

Once he was sitting upright, he turned to face her. There was determination in his gaze and Pidge could _feel_ the righteous speech coming on. And she did not have the patience for it.

“You could have died Hunk, for my mistake! My life is not worth yours!”

“Well, I disagree.”

“Well I disagree that you disagree.”

“Well I—,” Hunk cut off with a gasp of pain as he jostled his shoulder. Pidge reached out but not knowing how to help let her hands fall useless back to her lap. Hunk took a deep breath and began again.

“Look, if that arrow would have hit you, you would be dead right now. It was coming right for your head. But as you may have noticed, I am a bit taller than you.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, but didn’t interrupt. Hunk continued, “So logically, it made sense that if I got in front of it, it would hit me a much less lethal spot and I would not die. And I liked that plan better than you dying Pidge. So I’m sorry you’re upset, but not sorry I did it. 

Pidge looked at him again – mouth tight in pain but expression stubborn. His hand was clutching his shoulder but he was still sitting straight and staring her down defiantly. She knew he was right. There wasn’t even really anything to discuss because he was 100% correct and they both knew it.

But that did nothing to ease the fear in her heart.

There had been a moment – a split second really – where she hadn’t known. Where he had thought he might be dead.

Where she had thought he was dead and knew that it was her fault.

That one moment had almost broken her. She didn’t think she could’ve come back from that reality.

But here he was – brave, loving, caring Hunk. He was here and hurt, but alive.

She broke the silence by launching herself across the distance between them and throwing her arms around him (being careful to not jostle the arrow, or course).

She felt tears rolling down her cheeks and did not try to stop them.

“You scared me,” she said quietly.

She could feel the defiant tension leave his body as he took he good arm and lightly rubbed her back, “You scared me first.”

She gave a wet chuckle, “I guess that makes us even then.”

He laughed lightly in reply, “Yeah, I suppose it does. But who’s counting, really?”

They remained that way, silent and intertwined for several more moments. But Pidge removed herself far sooner than she wanted to; there was work to be done.  

She looked over the side of the platform to see Shiro and Allura up and moving swiftly towards Keith and Lance’s location. She knew they would handle getting Lance to the castle and that helped to settle some of the lingering fear.

They would need to get down from this godforsaken platform and retrieve their armor and helmets before they could meet up with the rest of the team. Then there would have to be some sort of resolution reached with these technophobic aliens. But that was a problem for later. Right now she needed to move one step at a time and they would get through this.

How they got there didn’t really matter, but ultimately she had one goal – to get off of this fucking planet and never see it again. 

 

* * *

 

Find my bingo card [here](http://brillliantbanshee.tumblr.com/post/181237296590/brillliantbanshee-because-i-should-be-grading). Request prompts [here](http://brillliantbanshee.tumblr.com/ask).  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Pidge was fun to write. I should do it more often. And I still hurt Lance because apparently I'm incapable of not doing that? 
> 
> If you'd like to read more, head over to my tumblr (@brilllliantbanshee) to request a prompt. There are still a lot available! 
> 
> I have all of the rest started and as soon as I find more free time and motivation, I'll finish them. So be on the look out for that. It will happen, I swear.


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